Arts Space: All DayThere's no question that the Schools we Deserve integrate the arts! The Arts Space features:

Starting at 8am, Community Chalking with community artist Laura Evonne Steinman

Student Voice Photobooth: Brought to us by BSAC/Youth on Board, an interactive photo campaign that asks students, educators and parents one essential question: Why does student voice matter?

T-shirt silkscreening with local artist Taina Vargas: bring your own t-shirt to silkscreen the conference logo, or purchase one already made at the conference

An interactive arts space available all day for you to engage with others and let your creative juices flow as you reflect on our theme: “Educate to Liberate: Creating the schools we deserve”

The Arts Space will culminate in an Interactive Art Process which will carry us into our afternoon Visioning Session!

Saturday Keynote SpeakerHelen Gym is a co-founder of the Parents United for Public Education in Philadelphia, a citywide parent group focused on school budgets and funding to improve achievement and accountability in the public schools. She is former editor of the Philadelphia newspaper Public School Notebook and an associate editor with the national magazine Rethinking Schools. She is a board member at the community group Asian Americans United.

Friday Night Panel: "Creating a shared analysis of the current landscape of public education"Zakiyah Ansari is a New York City parent fighting to get the city to provide more resources for neighborhood schools instead of shutting them down. She is a leader in the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, the Alliance for Quality Education, and New Yorkers for Great Public Schools.

Bianca Martinez is Vice President of the Boston Student Advisory Council, a citywide body of elected student leaders representing most BPS high schools. She is a senior at Greater Egleston Community High School in Roxbury. BSAC students have led organizing efforts, informed students of their rights and responsibilities, and advised school leaders on policies about punctuality, homework, teacher evaluation and hiring, and other matters.

Conrado Santos is Campaign Coordinator of the Student Immigrant Movement. He immigrated to the US from Brazil with his family at the age of 13. He has been a part of the Student Immigrant Movement for six years, and has worked with hundreds of students in pursuit of the DREAM Act and other policies.

Jessica Tang is a 6th grade social studies teacher at the Young Achievers Math and Science Pilot School in Mattapan and has taught in Boston Public Schools for the last eight years. In 2011 she was elected to serve on the Executive Board of the Boston Teachers Union and spearheaded the creation of the union's first Community Advisory Board. She is a founding member of the Teacher Activist Group-Boston and a former co-chair of the Massachusetts Asian American Educators Association.

Irma Flores is a parent organizer in Everett in collaboration with La Comunidad Inc, and Mass Jobs with Justice. She has been a parent organizer with East Boston Ecumenical Community Council. Currently a paraprofessional in the Somerville public schools, Irma's children attended Everett Public Schools and Chelsea Public Schools.​Keith Catone is a Principal Associate for Community Organizing and Engagement at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. He is a co-founder of the New York Coalition of Radical Educators (NYCORE) and serves on the board of the National Education for Liberation Network.

10am Workshops

Unsung Sheroes: Womyn in the Movement

El Movimiento will be presenting a workshop to discuss the inequalities womyn faced and continue to face in the movement. Currently, the media overwhelmingly portrays negative images of womyn to perpetuate sexism. The media also creates an environment where society continues to use derogatory terms towards and about women. We will be discussing how these terms affect the representation of womyn not just in the media but in other realms as well. While many of us are familiar with men in the frontlines such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X not a lot of us are aware of the womyn who were actively involved in the civil rights movement. We will also be highlighting the work of three amazing women involved in the civil rights movement, Yuri Kochiyama, Assata Shakur, and Dolores Huerta.

Youth from El Movimiento

Beautiful Trouble: Creative Direct Action Planning

Using some simple, yet effective tools participants will use the workshop time to apply principles of creative direct action planning to their own political and community organizing work to get hands on skill building time. The focus of the workshop will be on direct action planning and how ti fits into larger community organizing efforts. Participants can come with an action that is already in the planning stages or come to just get some brainstorming time to workshop ideas for future action ideas. Morrigan Phillips, Beautiful Trouble

Moving From Mindless Testing to Assessment for Powerful Learning

High quality assessment is essential to teaching and learning. Students, parents and communities need accurate, balanced information about progress. MCAS and standardized testing don't provide that. Rather, they narrow curriculum and often deny students a diploma. This workshop will present examples of classroom- and school-based assessments that are student centered and practitioner developed, support rich, deep and engaging learning, and provide information in a fair, culturally responsive manner. The examples will include:

Boston's Mission Hill School (preK-8), where teachers develop their assessments rooted in the school's project-based curriculum. They will discuss practice and thinking that goes into assessment (before, during and after), how assessment of a class, individual or small group influences curriculum. Mission Hill must administer the MCAS.

New York Performance Standards Consortium, 26 public high schools which use project-based learning and performance assessments for graduation and accountability, with excellent results for a diverse student body that mirrors NYC.

Legislation from Citizens for Public Schools, introduced by Rep. Carl Sciortino, that would overhaul the state assessment system.

After each example, participants will question and discuss it, with equal time for presentation and discussion. We also will consider how to move to authentic assessment despite MCAS.

Powermapping

Experience powermapping in an interactive and useful way! Participants will do a power map of Massachusetts on the subject of education, learning who the players are and taking on there rolls, then ranking them in order of power and influence. Through fun interactive games, this workshop will help participants understand who will be able to truly help them change their schools and the school system around. Boston-area Youth Organizing Project and Jobs With Justice

Working with Wrongs and Making them Right

In this workshop participants will learn a compare and contrast of traditional vs. restorative school discipline practices. As a whole group participants will explore their own feelings, needs and reparations in situations where harm has been done to them and when they have caused harm to others. Then working in small groups; Some participant groups will use real life classroom, hallway, assembly situations as presented by one colleague in the group and begin to design a restorative Circle suited to that situation. Some other participant groups will design a Restorative Community Building Circle using a topic of choice. All will report to the larger group.

Engaging Youth in Social Justice Through Environmental Justice

This workshop will explore the Environmental Justice Movement using local and national youth case studies of work on climate change, air quality, transportation, and land use. We will focus on tools for engaging and supporting young people to fight for environmental justice by identifying issues they care about, finding solutions, and taking action. Participants in this workshop will come away with an enhanced understanding of the history of the environmental justice movement, the intersections between environmental degradation, race, and class, and ideas for methods of partcipatory action research along with tools for organizing youth.

David Noiles, REEP Organizer (ACE)

The Drama of Power; The Power of Drama

"The realization of most societal goals, even in situations in which the actor‚ commitment and knowledge are considerable, requires the application of power." Drama, in its many forms, is an ideal vehicle for helping students explore their own ideas about power, experiment with exercising power, and develop skills for using their power to achieve societal goals, as individuals and in groups. In this workshop, participants will experience a variety of approaches to working with these ideas with middle and high school students, and will explore their own ideas about power and its uses. This workshop will feature both hands-on theatre work and analysis/discussion, with a focus on the uses of drama in core curriculum instruction for fostering community among students. The integration of power-focused work with existing curricula will be addressed.

Bethany Nelson, Emerson College

Sexual Health is Fundamental: Let's make it happen in BPS

Healthy youth are better able to learn, and reducing key health disparities is a critical aspect of reducing the achievement gap. However, students in Boston still do not have equitable access to sexual health information nor to condoms. The neglect of these basic sexual health needs has a disproportionate impact on LGBTQ youth of color and comprises a critical social justice issue. Join our network, which includes Fenway Health, the Mass Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, the Hyde Square Task Force, the Mass Commission on LGBT youth, ABCD Health Services, and more, in advocating for clear system-wide sexual health education and condom availability policies to ensure equity and optimal health across our system. In June, the BPS Wellness Council will be presenting a new Wellness Policy to the School Committee for consideration, which represents a key opportunity to assert the importance of condom availability and sex education in our schools. In this workshop, we will build a vision for a condom availability program in conjunction with a sexual health education program that is sex-positive, LGBTQ-inclusive, trauma-informed, and culturally competent. Together, we can push for these much-needed changes and make concrete steps towards building a more just and equitable school system.

Co-opoly: Exploring Cooperative Economics through Gameplay

Worker-owners from the Toolbox for Education and Social Action (TESA) will lead an interactive workshop centered on their board game, Co-opoly: the Game of Cooperatives. Participants will engage in a guided game-play session, and discuss workplace democracy and cooperative economics. The workshop will be hands-on and participant driven, with participants experiencing how a worker-cooperative operates, the challenges and rewards they bring, and how this is linked to the radical education movement.

During the workshop, participants will engage in interactive discussion and small groups activities that explore what real democracy is, and address the question: can we really have a democratic society if we don't practice democracy on a day-today, human-to-human level? These discussion will happen alongside an interactive and guided game-play session of Co-opoly. In Co-opoly, players collaborate to found and run a democratic business, and everyone wins, or everyone loses. In order to survive as individuals and to strive for the success of their co-op, players make tough choices regarding big and small challenges while putting their teamwork abilities to the test. By playing Co-opoly, players discover the unique benefits, challenges, and operations of the cooperative world, as well as the skills needed to participate in a co-op!

Andrew Stachiw, worker-owner; Brian Van Slyke, worker-owner

Can School Site Council/School Based Management be a tool to get the schools we deserve?

Boston United for Students will conduct an interactive session exploring what School Site Council/School Based Management needs to be an effective tool to change schools. In 1993, the Massachusetts Education Reform Act mandated that districts create school site council/ shared decision making (SSC/SBM) as an advisory council for school leaders on school improvement. The BPS/BTU via the teacher contract, took it a step further mandating the Boston's SSC/SBM have voting rights on key areas of school reform. Shared decision-making between faculty, parents, administration, students (at the high school level), and other community participants in our schools is essential for creating shared responsibility and accountability for school improvement, better student performance, increased satisfaction among professional educators,increased parent involvement, and stronger support from the community. During this workshop participants will gain ideas and information on how to improve the functioning of the School Site Councils/School Based Management at their own schools.

Fran Smith & Alicia Mooltrey, Education Organizer

Youth Jobs Coalition

This workshop is an introduction to the Youth Jobs Coalition and the Youth Jobs campaign. It gives a brief history of the work we have done over the past few years and the wins we have accomplished since we began the campaign. This workshop also provides an opportunity to get involved in the campaign or learn how to take action.

Beyond Mathematics Anxiety and Reform: Liberation in Mathematics

People's difficulties with mathematics are often blamed on what educators and researchers call mathematics anxiety, the fear of doing mathematics. When Sheila Tobias published an article on math anxiety in Ms. Magazine in 1976, she was calling for an explicitly feminist and political response to a "critical filter" that kept women out of science and engineering. However, in the past 30 years, the frame of anxiety has pathologized the experiences of people struggling with mathematics and made those struggles individual rather than communal.

In this workshop, we will move beyond mathematics anxiety into communal and relational issues with mathematics and mathematics education. We will start by investigating the mathematical experiences and identities of the workshop participants, with a particular emphasis on elevating the voices of those who have been silenced by mathematics and left out of the conversations about educational reform. We'll ask what mathematics is, why mathematics might be a problem, and how mathematics is taught and used in society. Our intention will be to collectively trouble the position of mathematics as a high-status subject and gatekeeper in order to find routes to power with mathematics, through mathematics, and over mathematics.

Angela Vierling-Claassen, Lesley University

Love Me Don't Sell Me - The Reality of Modern Day Slavery

Many of the themes focused on in history classes are centered around the fact that the success of past civilizations is based on oppression and slavery, but that these civilizations have ceased to exist. However, history is not cut into chapter breaks, but rather it is a continuous chain of cause and effect. Our purpose is to raise awareness on the silenced issue of sex trafficking. Prior to taking effective action, we must educate ourselves and the people around us on the human trafficking trade. In our presentation we will share our view on the major causes and solutions to human trafficking through discussion, reading, videos, and music. In addition at the end of the workshop we will be providing any of the participants with the lesson plan for our student created curriculum should they wish to teach it to others.

Katie Walt, Ali Brailey, and Maya Shaked, of Students Against Human Trafficking

Tools for Anti-racism

Speak Up! A Personal Stories Project, combines youth voice with a careful analysis of structural racism. Full of activities, stories, and discussion questions, this anthology is inspiring educators and youth around the country. This workshop will use popular education techniques to share the Speak Up! story and help you learn how to bring the Speak Up! Anthology to your classroom or community group. We hope you will also gain inspiration from engaging with a youth-conceived, youth-designed, youth-voice publication. And, pick up some simple tips for offering a structural analysis of racism to your classroom or community. Plus we'll have great conversation.

Chris Messinger, Elizabeth Nguyen; Boston Mobilization

"No School Excels East Stroudsburg"

A one-hour participatory performance piece with Round the Corner Movers that evokes sense memory and spurs conversation.-How are our interactions, expectations, and identities shaped in school? -How is our sense of what we can do in the world shaped in school?-How might asking these questions change the culture of education?

Round the corner movers (Dance troupe)

11am Workshops

Food for Thought

Food for Thought and Action is a workshop series that focuses on food systems, food justice, and healthy eating. The workshops build on each other and intend to address the causes and social impacts of food access inequity. Workshop topics include the impact of local and global food systems on the economy, environment and community; workers rights; and what is in your food. The Food Project's youth interns deliver these workshops to partner organizations and to their fellow youth in the Academic Year Program. These teenagers represent the most experienced group of youth at The Food Project. They are knowledgeable about the food system, food justice, sustainable agriculture, and the food movement, and have worked hard to hone their public speaking and facilitation skills in order to effectively present a wide variety of workshops and presentations.

Christian Appel and youth interns from The Food Project

Let's Organize to Make the (High-Stakes Testing) Beatings Stop, so Morale (and Education) Can Improve!

Our goal is to educate participants about the need to fight high-stakes testing in order to create a real space for the kinds of schools we envision. Examples of successful actions in the nationwide backlash against high-stakes testing can help inspire participants to think about how to build a movement for change here in Massachusetts and how to connect with thousands of others doing the same across the nation.

Co-Teaching for Social Justice

Traditionally special education students, a disproportionate amount of whom have been students of color, have been educated in segregated classrooms with poor teaching and low expectations. Co-Teaching, the practice of a general education teacher and a special education teacher working together, can create successful outcomes for students with and without IEPs in the general education classroom. This workshop includes a brief history of special education, data about disproportionality, co-teaching methods, description of a model used in San Diego Unified, do's/don'ts, with video and photo media.

Anastasia Klafter, EdM Candidate, Harvard GSE

Suspensions : The Interactive Game

Participants will play a board game designed to show some of the infractions students are suspended for and how they are treated within the system after the have been. Followed by a discussion on the alternatives to suspensions.

Roy Daley, Jean Isme of Boston Youth Organizing Project

Story Circle on “Your Great Educational Experience”

In our workshop, teachers, youth, educators, parents, students, and activists are invited to tell the story of your most fulfilling education moment, the learning experience which most captures what you believe is positive, impactful and purposeful education. The workshop will be facilitated by youth from Social Justice Education, and the Story Circle format, made popular by Boston Busing/ Desegregation Project, will enable us across generations to share these momentous experiences. We will record these stories towards the goal of combining them into a document, a written encapsulation of the contributions of each member. The goal is to find those kernels at the center of the stories that bind them together into a picture of what we the people value as wisdom, what we the people experience as the best way to teach and learn.Sakyia Mead, Madison Park High School, Leange Tajeda, Curley K-8, Yolanda Lynn, Boston Latin Academy, and Jada Powell, Health Careers Academy

Raise Your Voice: Using Documentary Theatre to Empower the Classroom and Community

This hands-on workshop is designed to give educators and community-engaged theatre artists the tools they need in order to create an original piece of documentary theatre with their students and/or members of the community. Participants will learn how to engage students in the choosing of a relevant social, political, or cultural issue that matters to their classroom or community, and explore this topic through discussion, research, theatre games, and writing activities. Inspired by the work of the Tectonic Theater Project, Anna Deavere Smith, and The Civilians, this session will teach and engage participants in several techniques used in creating documentary theatre, including interview skills, improvisation, and moment work. Theatre is a powerful tool for learning about and changing the world around us, and this session will empower participants to adapt the theatrical form to meet the needs of their particular students or community, allowing the work to spring from and speak to the issues that matter most to them.

Melissa Bergstrom

Knowing your Rights! How Title IX Protects Expectant and Parenting Students

This workshop primarily focuses on the Title IX law. Title IX protects students from various forms of sex discrimination (with a special protection for expectant and parenting students.) However, many schools and their parenting students are unaware of these protections. This workshop uses an interactive and fun approach to teaching by having participants play a jeopardy-style game, complete with buzzers and prizes! The game will move through several scenarios within the educational system and could also include non-Title IX scenarios that help expectant and parenting teens figure out their legal rights relating to custody, benefits and housing. This workshop will be led by expectant and parenting teens, and/or former teen parents, who will help participants navigate when/how the law protects students, who to reach out to and how best to reach out when they feel their/student's rights have been violated and the best ways to advocate for school's compliance with the law.

E-Raced: Holding High the History of Hidden Heroes

Many unsung heroes of social justice movements never appear in standard history books because they are deemed too radical or contradict the dominant narrative of U.S. or world history. This workshop offers a case study of The David Walker Memorial Project (DWMP), launched by a group of Boston-area community activists and educators to raise public awareness about David Walker, a Black abolitionist who made a critical contribution to ending slavery in the U.S. and yet is largely unknown and uncelebrated. Walker did his most influential work in Boston, and his purported grave in a South Boston cemetery is unmarked. Presenters will discuss DWMP activities, including research on Walker; the development of a website (www.davidwalkermemorial.org); and defending the project’s revised Wikipedia entry on Walker against cyber attack and skeptical Wikipedia editors. They will also talk about plans for a visibility campaign on David Walker this fall involving peer education and T-shirt design by youth; a New Orleans-style funeral march to honor Walker; and production of a new play, Raising David Walker, by award-winning Boston playwright Peter Snoad at Roxbury’s Hibernian Hall. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to discuss the value and relevance of teaching and learning about David Walker today.

LGBTQ Inclusivity for Today's Diverse Students

This workshop hopes to spark the conversation on how to create more inclusive environments, practices and practitioners with regards to gender and sexuality (specifically in educational settings). We all know that schools/colleges/etc. are not only places for learning -- they are communities, places where we socialize, develop an understanding of self, and so much more. This workshop is open to all - those with little-to-no prior knowledge of LGBTQ issues to those with advanced understandings to come together and talk about the tangible changes that can be made to improve LGBTQ and gender inclusivity in our classrooms and practices.

Megan Bolger, Community Based Educator & Becca Brady, High School Senior

We are the Ones in the Classroom. ASK US!

We will talk about teacher evaluation and how important it is for students to be able to evaluate their teachers to promote a greater teaching and learning community. Also, students should have power as decision makers in their schools, since they are the ones in the classroom.

Damien Leach & Dan Chu, Boston Student Advisory Council

Teacher Professional Development Off-script: Empowering Educators, Parents and Students

Every school day parents, teachers and students live stories of education: what happens before, during and after school, the hope and promise, achievements and frustrations. To whom do they tell these stories of daily success and difficulty, achievement and injustice? How do they give voice to their versions of school, empowering themselves, on educational issues that deeply affect their lives? The Boston Teachers's Reading and Writing group seeks to elicit and capture these stories that express the diverse experiences of schooling. We want teachers to make their school lives public, taking responsibility for their own professional growth and development. We want students, teachers and parents to express and document their experiences with school to counteract attacks on public school students and teachers. We are starting a website, "Boston Teachers Off Script" as a forum for these stories.At our session we will share what we have done to give voice to teachers through reading, writing and the website. We will ask participants to express their perspectives on schooling, beginning their education stories--as teacher, parent or student. We will share our work to date, including the website, and strategize generating and publishing our lived realities of schooling.

Junia Yearwood, Kristie McElhaney, and Stephen Gordon of the Boston Teachers Reading and Writing Group

Understanding Youth Power and Adultism

“If you really want to make change, graduate and come back,” said by a Boston Public School teacher to a youth leader. Not sure what adultism looks like or feels like, like the above quote. In Boston, teenagers are mobilized and fighting back against a political and social environment that discriminates against youth, leaves them with few job options, and regularly silences youth voice through the Youth Justice and Power Union. Come learn about youth organizing, current campaign work, how to become an effective adult ally, and how young people are engaged and leading in the struggle for justice in Boston now.

Ziquelle Smalls, The City School

Bilingual Education: Stories of quiet success from a decade “Underground” … and Plans for a Comeback!

This panel will explore the history of bilingual ed in Massachusetts, what has happened since Question 2 passed in 2003, and current legislative and organizing efforts to expand bilingual education offerings in southern New England. Youth panelists will share some of their unique experiences attending bilingual schools during this time "underground," bilingual educators will share how high-stakes testing and Question 2 have affected their work, and the Massachusetts Association of Bilingual Education will share some exciting initiatives to bring back bilingual education in the state.

Phyllis Hardy, Massachusetts Association of Bilingual Educators

Grassroots Lobbying in Massachusetts

This workshop will go beyond the standard civics film about how a bill becomes laws to explain what really happens under the State House golden dome. The three presenters will describe the different tiers of influence that legislators have based on rank in their respective houses, focusing on the critical roles of the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate and the two chairs of the Ways and Means Committees. The presenters will then discuss how grassroots movements can influence legislation and public policy.